Sunday, July 26, 2009

do twelve-year old boys get pre-bar mitzvah jitters?

i don't think brother2 has them. he's been practicing his parsha, ad nauseum. i can probably recite till the second or third aliyah with minimal prompting. but sister2 can go all the way up to the fourth.

his only problem is that he reads it way to quickly. he takes a deep breath....and zooms off so fast you're left standing in the dust.

yesterday, my dad made him practice reading his speech at the table.

it was a disaster.

he was reading it so quickly, i couldn't discern the hebrew words from the english. it was all a big blur of "rambam" and "karbanos" my dad made him start over at least five or six times, until we all knew the opening lines by heart. then sister2 and brother1 started laughing, which sent brother2 into the corner to keep control from laughing himself. I'm telling you, the slightest thing can set this kid off. he's a regular drama king. must take after his oldest sister. then my dad had us all take turns to show brother1 how it's done. that didn't work so well either. brother2 added his own yeshivish words, so nobody was able to understand him.

i don't know when he's going to get more practice, i think he's going up to camp tomorrow or Tuesday. and i hardly think he'll actually take along his speech to practice. although, maybe if i have it laminated he'll practice in the shower.

but anyone reading this who will be present this week, either for torah reading or his speech recital, beware. if you're hoping it'll be quick, it will be. you might just not understand a word of it.

4 comments:

CJ Srullowitz said...

Yeah. I had, lulei demistafina, major jitters.

The only thing I remember from my BM speech is the word "manifestation." My father wrote it for me.

I made up for it several years later, speaking at my youngest brother's bar mitzvah, and doing, lulei demistafina, a masterful job.

In fact, I got a date out of it. A girl, who would not go out with me previously, relented after her dad heard me speak and raved about me to her.

Frum and Rational said...

I had serious jitters before my bar mitzvah, but I had my speech and leining so completely memorized that I was able to completely shut down the rest of my brain and obliviously let the leining and speech just flow out. The only memories I have of my bar mitzvah are of having to use the restroom just before I was supposed to lein and shaking someone's hand. (I suppose that is really the synthesis of memories of several hundred hand shakings/ mazel tovs/ congratulations etc.)

SuperRaizy said...

Boys usually do get the jitters before their Bar Mitzvah. If your brother speeds through his Parsha, he won't be the first one. You'll all be really proud of him anyway.

%Shocked% said...

I was lucky enough not to have the jitters too bad for leining.That part was a pleasure, and I was told I wasn't too fast or too slow. The speech is what got me. I had these really lame jokes that were thrown in, but at the time they seemed positively hilarious. Ya, I burst out laughing. Good times. Ironically, I speak publicly all the time and never lein anymore. Funny how things work out. Mazal Tov!